


You're a Good Man, Tony Stark

by gogglor



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Character Study, Confrontations, Ethics, Gen, Guilt, Happy Ending, Tony runs away from his problems, Until his friends won't let him run anymore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:01:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29760030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gogglor/pseuds/gogglor
Summary: Tony Stark has a lot of deaths on his conscience, but those days are behind him. And now that he's saving lives, the day is going to come when he's saved more lives than he's killed. He can't wait for that day to come... right?
Relationships: Clint Barton & Tony Stark, Natasha Romanov & Tony Stark, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Comments: 5
Kudos: 22





	You're a Good Man, Tony Stark

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to ChocolateCapCookie for the beta. You're the bomb.
> 
> I tagged this "Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism" to be on the safe side, but it's one night of Tony trying to drink away his emotions, not an ongoing problem with addiction.

“Hey, Jarvis?” said Tony, “I need you to come up with a number for me.”

“I believe that shouldn’t be too taxing sir,” said Jarvis, “Is there a particular number sir requires or will any number do?”

“Quit being a smartass for a second,” said Tony as he rubbed his hand over his face. He realized he didn’t actually have a concrete question ready, just a nagging thought at the back of his mind, one that had been there since he’d left that godforsaken cave and that had persisted through today’s press conference on the future of his company. So he took a few seconds to turn the feeling into words.

“I need to know… how much is on my conscience. How many people have I killed.”

There was a pause, then Jarvis said, “Please specify further parameters.”

“Further parameters?”

“Is sir only concerned with lives he personally took?”

“No, J, I need… all the weapons I invented. However far I advanced the science of putting people in the ground. How many people died who would’ve breathed longer if I’d never been born?”

“That is impossible to determine with any degree of certainty, sir.”

“I know, I just need a ballpark. Are we talking thousands or—”

“My back of the envelope calculations suggest the number should be in the hundreds of thousands, sir,” said Jarvis.

Tony leaned over his workbench and felt his fingers curl into fists against the cool, white, backlit glass. Hundreds of thousands. That… _Christ_. That was so many.

“Are you sure, J?” said Tony quietly, his voice a bit unsteady.

“No, sir. As I said, that is merely an estimate,” said Jarvis.

“Ok. Well. Come up with a range. Hack the pentagon for the numbers if you have to. And also… I need you to start tracking how many lives I’ve saved. And if the day ever comes where, with 99% certainty, the number of lives I’ve saved is larger than the number of lives I’ve taken, let me know.”

“Of course, sir,” said Jarvis, “I should have a preliminary range within 24 hours.”

“Don’t tell me what it is when you find it, J. That’s— God, knowing the rough estimate is enough. But if I ever actually do it, if I save more people than I killed, send up a bottle of champagne to the lab. Something expensive. And put a note around the neck that says, ‘You’re a good man, Tony Stark.’”

“Yes, sir.”

***

After the most awkward shawarma dinner of Tony’s life, the Avengers crawled back to Tony’s penthouse and more or less collapsed, still in their suits, all over the couches in the common room, and slept off the adrenaline crash and sheer post-battle exhaustion. Tony was one of the last to wake up, and he probably would’ve slept for another couple of hours if he hadn’t smelled the coffee someone was making.

“He lives!” said Clint as Tony sat up… and realized he was still in the Iron Man suit (minus the helmet), “We were starting to worry you were trapped in the suit.”

“Coffee,” said Tony, because literally nothing else mattered in the universe at that moment.

“Told you,” said Natasha.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Clint, as he passed Tony a mug.

Tony took it, and it shattered in his hands. Hm. The fall must’ve damaged the fine motor control in the gauntlets.

“Start another pot,” said Tony as he got up, “I’ll be back in 2 minutes.”

He ran downstairs to the lab, completely indifferent to the irreparable gouges the boots were carving into the cherrywood floor because if he didn’t get coffee in his system in _30 seconds_ he would start a supervillain origin story, right here and now.

The doors to the lab opened, and Tony froze. There, in the middle of the lab, was a bottle of champagne in a bucket of water. Attached to the neck of the bottle was a note.

“Jarvis?” said Tony.

“Yes, sir?”

“Why is there champagne in my lab?”

“Sir requested if, within 99% certainty—”

“I know what sir requested, why is it here?”

“Sir has met the parameters of the original request,” said Jarvis.

“We’ll see about that,” said Tony, as he gave the champagne the widest possible berth on the way to the backup suit disassembly line. The moment he was out of the suit he was on his computer, looking over Jarvis’s math. As he looked it over he felt a mix of relief and guilt wash over him. Jarvis had made a couple of assumptions Tony wouldn’t have, and the result was mathematical hogwash. First, he’d credited Tony with every life saved when the nuke had gone through the wormhole. But Tony wouldn’t have been able to do that without the other 5 managing the fight on the ground. At best, he was responsible for one sixth of the lives saved yesterday, _if that_. Also, Jarvis hadn’t factored in lives that were _still_ being taken thanks to advancements in weapons technology that Tony had made. It wasn’t just a range of possible numbers for lives - it needed to be a formula, so the numbers would go up over time and eventually level out as everyone else’s tech caught up.

“What are you working on?”

Tony jumped so violently he nearly knocked over his chair. He turned around and there was Steve, now showered and rested, although obviously still sore from the beating they’d all taken and given yesterday. In his hand was a cup of coffee. Tony didn’t even ask if it was meant for him, he just took it and drained it, then let out an indecent groan.

“Natasha said you were probably either concussed or dead when you didn’t come back upstairs, and she sent me down here to check on you,” said Steve.

“Is there more coffee upstairs?” said Tony.

Steve laughed, then said, “Yeah. But what’s—”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Tony, as he pressed a few keys to hide the new equation, “J? Send Dummy to put the champagne away. And have some spare bedrooms made up, I think we’re going to have guests for a while.”

***

“Why are we doing this in your lab instead of mine?” asked Bruce.

“My microscope’s stronger than yours,” said Tony.

“ _Bullshit._ ”

“J?”

“Mr. Stark’s microscope is indeed stronger than yours, Dr. Banner,” said Jarvis.

They were walking away from the elevator bank toward the entrance to Tony’s lab, a sample of the alien goo blob they’d just stopped from devouring the Chrysler building in hand. Most of it was contained in a hermetically sealed vault now, but they needed to figure out what the hell it was and where it had come from.

“Wh— Tony, I’m a biologist. You’re an engineer. Why the hell do _you_ have the strongest microscope in the tower?”

“I went through a nanotechnology phase a few weeks ago. But I’ve moved on, so you can have the microscope once we’re done if you like,” said Tony, as he pressed his palm against the scanner to open the door.

“Moved on?” said Bruce.

“That and the nanobots escaped.”

“They _escaped!?_ What are… Tony? You ok?”

Bruce followed Tony’s eyes and saw the bottle of champagne in a bucket of ice in the center of the lab. Then his face split into a grin.

“Hot date with Pepper later?” he asked.

“What?” Tony asked, finally coming back to the present.

“Hey, gimme the sample and I’ll leave you to get ready for your date.”

“No, that’s— Jarvis, put the champagne away, I’ll deal with it later.”

Half of Tony’s mind was thinking about the champagne as he and Bruce looked over the goo sample (thank God Tony’s brain was big enough that half of it preoccupied with something else didn’t impact his work). The second Bruce left the lab to run tests to confirm their suspicions (earth origin, likely related to that lab they busted in Delhi last month), Tony was back on his computer.

What idiot wrote _this?_ It was nonsense — Tony wasn’t responsible for one sixth of the team’s saved lives. Half the time, the team would’ve been fine if Tony had slept in. Also, now that Shield and Sam and that Dr. Strange guy were all joining them from time to time, the credit needed to be split even further. Tony made the requisite adjustments, put the bottle back in the liquor cabinet, and then went to go harass Bruce to see if he could run his tests any faster.

***

Tony just managed to get his hand on the palm scanner so he and Pepper could fall through the door to the lab, a flurry of hands and lips and discarded bits of clothing.

“ _Tony_ ,” said Pepper, as she brought Tony’s chin up from its downward descent from her neck to the buttons on her blouse, “I thought you wanted to play ‘sexy mechanic seducing the high powered CEO who came in for an oil change.’”

“That _was_ a really good idea in the car, wasn’t it?” said Tony, as his hands moved down to the zipper on her pencil skirt, “But I just thought of a new game. It’s called ‘we fuck over a work bench right the fuck now.’”

Pepper giggled and let Tony pick her up to carry her over to the closest workbench. Then he nearly dropped her when he walked straight into something that tipped over and scattered pieces all over the floor. He was going to ignore it, until he nearly slipped on one of the pieces, and realized it was ice.

“Jarvis, hit the lights,” said Tony as he set Pepper down on the workbench.

Jarvis brought the lights up, and Tony swore when he realized it was the damn champagne.

“Since when do you drink champagne outside of schmooze events?” Pepper said through a smile. When Tony didn’t reply, she added, “Tony? Are you alright?”

“What? Oh, yeah. Just— Jarvis, send a bot to clean this up. Wait, Pepper, don’t—”

“‘You’re a good man, Tony Stark,’” Pepper read aloud. Then she paused, and turned toward Tony and said, “Who sent this to you?”

“Me,” said Tony.

“Oh really? You refer to yourself in the third person now?”

And then Tony realized what this looked like.

“Oh Jesus, no Pepper. I’m not cheating on you. Jarvis, can you confirm that I sent me the champagne?”

“Sir did order that champagne for himself seven years ago, Ms. Potts,” said Jarvis.

“Jarvis, CEO override code Alpha Niner Charlie. Did you just tell me the truth?”

“Code accepted. Yes, Ms. Potts, the champagne is from Mr. Stark,” said Jarvis.

Some of the tension left Pepper’s posture, and she looked back at the note.

“What are you celebrating, then?” asked Pepper.

“Nothing. It’s— ow! Dummy! How many times do I have to tell you not to run over my feet?”

The robot made a sad chirping noise.

“It doesn’t _look_ like nothing,” said Pepper.

“It’s— I wrote a program. And it finished. But if it finished this early that means I wrote it wrong.”

“What kind of program?”

“Nothing important,” said Tony, as he took the champagne out of Pepper’s hands and walked it back to the liquor cabinet.

“I dunno, the way you’re acting right now it kind of feels like it’s important.”

“Not as important as this,” said Tony, as he slid his hand around the small of her waist and pulled her close.

They made out for another minute or so, but then Pepper pulled back and said, “How many times do I have to tell you that I know when your brain’s working on a project when we’re getting intimate?”

“I’m not—” started Tony, but Pepper was giving him murder-eyes, so he didn’t bother continuing that lie. “It’s that program. Now that I know it’s buggy—”

“—you need to fix it,” completed Pepper with a knowing smile.

“I promise I’ll make this up to you, Pep,” said Tony.

“You always do,” said Pepper, as she re-zipped the side of her skirt and picked up her purse.

“Weekend in the Alps house? Or we can go to the one in Maui if you’d rather surf.”

“Oh no. For this, you’re coming to a _board meeting_ ,” said Pepper with a smirk.

“You— I— fine. But I’m leaving halfway through.”

“No you’re not,” trilled Pepper as she walked out the door of the lab.

Damn that woman.

“Jarvis?” said Tony as he walked over to the computer, “Start a pot of coffee. Let’s get it right this time.”

***

They were all in the quinjet, in various states of slump. Tony was lying flat on the floor, his heavily dented helmet wobbling on the floor next to him, and he was willing his head not to explode from the giant headache he was nursing.

“Why does every alien that ever bothers with earth have to be a raging asshole?” said Tony.

“Hey!” said Thor.

“Sorry, Thor, but you lost the privilege to be excluded from that statement when you hammered me in the head on that back-swing.”

“Not _intentionally_ ,” grumbled Thor.

“Y’know, Tony’s got a point,” said Steve. “If you don’t count Asgard, we’re 0 for 8 for first contacts that didn’t result in us punching anybody.”

“Or flying a nuke through a wormhole to take them out,” said Tony.

“Or launching them into the Negative Zone to get them not to devour Earth,” said Natasha, referencing the mission they were just coming back from.

“Do we have a sign up somewhere that says, ‘Please fuck with us, we just love punching alien faces in’?” said Clint.

“Sort of,” said Thor.

Tony sat up and joined everyone else staring at Thor.

“ _Sort of!?_ ” Bruce exclaimed.

Thor shrugged and said, “Earth has a reputation now. It’s the place where the galaxy’s mightiest heroes live. When Asgard had that reputation, we were fending off frost giant attacks once a week.”

“Thor, I want to make sure I’m understanding this,” said Steve. “Are you telling me that every bully in the galaxy is picking a fight with Earth because _we’re here defending it_?”

“Well, I can’t be _certain_. But it’s certainly possible,” said Thor.

“We need to take this to Fury,” said Steve. “There’s got to be something we can do about this.”

“Tomorrow,” said Natasha, as the quinjet landed. “Today, let’s just hit the showers, eat our weight in pad thai, and see if we can’t convince Tony to let us actually drink that champagne he wouldn’t let us open last week after the robot thing.”

Tony felt his stomach turn to cement, and something between dread and panic started to rise in his chest.

“Wait, the champagne with flowers on the label?” said Bruce. “Nah, Jarvis has been setting that out for years and Tony’s been sending it back every time. I think he programmed Jarvis to put it out when he’s done some particularly spectacular people-saving, and Tony’s waiting till he’s done something cool enough to merit it.”

“I mean, we did just save the literal entire earth,” said Clint. “Pretty hard to top that.”

They’d… yeah. They had saved the entire earth. All 7 billion and change people on it. Divided by… and factoring in…

“It’s not for when he’s done some impressive people-saving,” said Steve confidently. “I remember when he sent it back after the battle for New York, and I think that’s the one that’s hard to top.”

“Is that so?” said Natasha, who was now looking at Tony like a cheetah sizing up a limping gazelle.

“Can you all stop talking like I’m not here?” said Tony.

“Alright. What’s the champagne for, Tony?” asked Bruce.

Everyone was looking at Tony, and Tony felt like he was going to hurl. So he fell back on his instincts, and smirked.

“If you _must_ know, it’s for when I’m planning to have hot, kinky sex with Pepper. I’m talking whips, ball-gags—”

“Why is it always the same bottle then? And why does the note on it say, ‘You’re a good man, Tony Stark’?” said Bruce.

Fuck. When had Bruce read the note?

“It’s the same vintage, not the same bottle. And it’s a private joke between me and Pepper,” Tony said as casually as he could. “Y’see there was this one time when she had my ankles tied to the bed and my wrists tied to—”

“Ok, I’ve heard enough,” said Steve and thank _Jesus_ Steve was so predictable because Tony had no idea how he was going to work “You’re a good man, Tony Stark” into a BDSM story. After that everyone else fell into debating which restaurant they’d order their victory feast from, but Natasha kept looking over at Tony and, fuck, he did not need that kind of scrutiny right now. Thankfully they touched down on the helipad a few minutes later and she and everyone else ran off to go hit the showers. Tony dawdled till they’d all gone inside, then picked up his helmet and said into it, “Jarvis, is there champagne set out in my lab right now?”

Jarvis’s voice buzzed out of the busted helmet speakers, “Yes, sir.”

And Tony knew he couldn’t fix the formula again. Not after it had taken a “literally saving the entire earth” hit like this. So Tony jammed the dented helmet back on his head, leapt off the side of the helipad, and started putting as much distance as he could between him and the champagne.

***

Tony woke up to a torrent of freezing water hitting him in the face.

“ _Shit!_ ” he shouted as he reached for the first thing he could grab. There was the sound of plastic tearing as the shower curtain came down around Tony and did absolutely nothing to stop the icy cold water soaking his clothes as he continued to struggle to get out of the bathtub he was sprawled in.

“You’re right, this is much more fun than starting a pot of coffee,” said a familiar male voice to Tony’s right.

Tony turned his head and squinted. Sunlight was streaming through the skylight in the bathroom and every photon of it absolutely pounded against Tony’s eyeballs. He raised his hand and finally saw the two shadowy blobs under the skylight start to take shape.

“Clint? Tasha?” said Tony hoarsely.

“Give him a second,” said Natasha.

“What the _fuck!_ You _fucking assholes_ —”

“There he is,” said Clint, as he reached over and turned off the shower spray.

“There’s clothes for you on the toilet seat. Get dressed and meet us in the kitchen downstairs,” said Nat as she turned to go.

“There’ll be coffee there,” said Clint with a wiggle of his eyebrows before he turned and followed her out.

Tony finally got enough coordination to stand up, and immediately regretted it when the pain in his forehead doubled. He hadn’t been this hungover since… Jesus, how much had he drunk last night?

Tony took in his surroundings and the last events he could remember started falling into place in his memory. Beating Galactus. Riding the quinjet back to the tower. Asking Jarvis if there was champagne in his lab. Landing by the cabin in the middle of the lake he owned that was buried a hundred layers deep in shell corporations that nobody, not even Pepper, knew about. Taking off the suit. Opening the liquor cabinet.

“Jarvis, what day and what time is it?” said Tony.

No one responded, which was when Tony remembered he took Jarvis off-line so he wouldn’t be followed. Which had apparently done fuck all to stop Clint and Natasha from tracking him down. Damn. Did they track the suit? But Tony had been in stealth mode, they— whatever, didn’t matter. What mattered was he needed to get the hell out of there.

The suit was in the kitchen, which was probably why Clint and Natasha had asked to meet him there. That meant Tony had to get to the boat outside, motor across the frigid water to the dock on the other side, then drive off. He could pick up another suit from the prototype warehouse in Seneca, then jet off somewhere harder to find. Which was… he could think of that later. Boat first.

Tony changed his clothes quickly, then hopped up on the sink so he could exit through the skylight. The kitchen was on the south side of the house, which meant Tony just had to shimmy down the water spout on the north side, stroll over to the dock, and he was in business. So, after some rather awkward shimmying (thank God he’d been training, there was no way he’d have the upper body strength to do this back when he’d bought this place, even though he was a lot younger then), Tony walked away from the house, crested over the top of the lawn so he could see the docks, and...

There was no boat at the dock.

“You owe me fifty bucks, Clint,” said Natasha’s voice maybe three feet behind him.

Tony yelped and jumped as he turned around. Clint and Natasha were standing behind him, and Clint was digging in his pockets. Fucking spies and their fucking ability to move in complete fucking silence.

“You couldn’t have improvised an explosive to distract us, Tony?” said an exasperated Clint as he placed $50 in Natasha’s outstretched hand.

And that… was a much better plan than what Tony had come up with. Why hadn’t he thought of that? Wait, no, he was angry, he was—

“He can’t come up with ideas that good when there’s no coffee in his system,” said Natasha to Clint, before she turned back to Tony and said, “Now that we’re done sneaking around, can you please come to the kitchen? I promise that Clint and I have thought of every other escape route you’re—”

“Why are you here?” said Tony.

“Can we have this conversation inside, please?” said Clint, who was only wearing a tee-shirt and jeans and was rubbing his arms to warm up. “There’s coffee in the kitchen. You’ll be able to come up with much better escape attempts when you’re caffeinated.”

“I don’t want coffee, I want to be left alone,” said Tony, who immediately turned away from both of them and started cataloguing things he could use to make a quick improvised raft to get across the lake as he walked toward the shore.

“Guess we’re having this conversation out here then. _Fuck_ , I should’ve brought my coat,” said Clint.

Tony was wearing a thick green sweater so the cold wasn’t bothering him yet. But it wasn’t water-proof, so whatever materials he made his raft with would need to take care not to allow any water seepage into—

“We know what the champagne is for, Tony,” said Natasha.

Tony’s feet and his thoughts froze. Damn. They must’ve hacked Jarvis. Wait, no, that was _impossible_ , they couldn’t—

“We’re reformed assassins, Tony. You think we don’t know what it looks like when someone’s save number passes their kill number?” said Clint.

Tony took a deep, fortifying breath, then turned back toward both of them.

“I don’t want to discuss this with you,” said Tony with as much authority and finality as he could muster.

“Tough shit,” said Natasha, as she grasped Tony’s elbow and began steering him back to the house. “C’mon, Tony, time to go talk about our feelings.”

Tony briefly considered fighting back, but then he remembered it was Clint and Natasha and he resigned himself to his fate. Whatever. They could keep him in the house for now, but they couldn’t make him do group therapy. God knows Fury had tried enough times to know it was useless. And Clint was right; he’d be able to come up with a better escape plan when he was caffeinated.

In the kitchen, Tony downed two excedrin, a tall glass of water, and four shots of espresso in quick succession. The espresso maker would churn out the next batch in a couple of minutes, and after another two shots, he’d be at his usual caffeine baseline. He could already feel his brain starting up again. Clint and Tasha would probably make sure one of them was with him at all times, but if he could get to the suit he could spoof a call from Fury to—

“Mine was 282,” said Clint as he stared down at the coffee between his hands, “And I hit it in 2006.”

“2,435,” said Natasha, “And I hit mine after the Battle for New York. Didn’t realize till a week later that I didn’t have any more red in my ledger, though. But that’s why I… disappeared for a while.”

“Damn right you disappeared,” said Clint, and even though they were talking about something that happened years ago there was still a thread of worry there. “One of these days you need to tell me where the hell you went.”

“You’re just jealous because I found you after a week,” said Natasha.

Clint shook his head, then turned back toward Tony.

“What was yours?” he asked.

Tony said nothing.

“I can answer that,” said Natasha. “It wasn’t a number. It was a formula. Because there’s nothing Tony can’t over-complicate. And he kept hitting the formula ceiling over and over, then going back and raising that ceiling, or lowering the number of lives he counted as ones he’d saved.”

Then she turned to Tony and said, “But now, after we’ve saved the literal entire earth, you can’t raise the ceiling anymore, and you can’t lower the floor either. And that means you’re trapped. You can’t shake the feeling that there’s been a mistake. Because there’s no way you could—”

“Please stop,” said Tony, breathing hard.

“There’s no way you could ever have possibly wiped out all that red in your ledger,” Natasha continued. “You’re a monster on a redemption arc, and now you’re at the end of that arc and by the standards of humanity you’re a net positive. You’re officially a good person now, but it feels unbelievably wrong.”

Tony was clinging to the kitchen island for dear life. He was _not_ — no. Nat was—

“Here’s the thing, Tony,” said Clint. “Everything Nat just said? It’s bullshit. You’re not a good person. And you never will be. You’ll never feel like you deserve to open that champagne, because you never will.”

It was like a dam broke somewhere in Tony’s chest. And all he could do was put his elbows on the table and the heels of his palms in his eyes and pretend he wasn’t sobbing. Nat put a hand on Tony’s back and rubbed it gently. Because Clint was right. He’d been fooling himself, all these years. There was no redemption for people like him. He would never, ever climb out of this pit. He would always, always be the Tony Stark whose weapons had murdered children in—

“You didn’t let me finish, Tony,” continued Clint. “You’ll never deserve to open that champagne because the whole question of who’s a good person or a bad person? That’s bullshit too. No one deserves that champagne. Because good people, bad people, neither of them exists. There’s just people, Tony. And you’re one of them.”

Tony looked up at Clint, and said, “What the fuck are you talking about, Barton?”

“Exactly what I said,” said Clint. He took a sip of his coffee, then added, “There might be mother Theresas and Hitlers out there, but nobody ever really knows for sure what their real impact is. Not in a way you can track. The only thing that matters is whether you’re making good choices right now, Tony. Choices that make up for your mistakes where you can and help people in the here and now.”

Natasha took Tony’s hands in hers, looked him in the eye, and said, “I know you probably feel like you’ve got the most red in your ledger out of us all, but Tony, you didn’t personally murder thousands of people. I did. Bad people, good people, strangers, friends... I used to make really bad choices, Tony. And living with that is hard. But I know I’m making good choices now. Ones that save more people than I kill. And I take the opportunities I can to fix things I broke, back when… when I was making bad choices. But for the most part, you just have to move on with your life and try to do better today, then tomorrow, then every other day.”

“But I… hundreds of thousands of people—” said Tony.

“I know, Tony,” said Nat gently. “I know. And maybe when we all die, we’ll get to the Pearly Gates and find out it really is that simple: that we killed too many good people to ever be good people ourselves, and then we get sent to rot in hell for eternity. But if that’s true, there’s nothing we can do about it except try to fix what we can in the meantime, Pearly Gates be damned. But maybe it’s not like that, Tony. Maybe instead of a ledger, it’s more like a drawing. You’re stuck with the lines you’ve already drawn and maybe you get to fix a few of them if you’re really lucky, but for the most part you just have to make the best of the blank space you have left.”

“Plus you’ll drive yourself crazy, trying to figure out if you’re _really_ a net positive or negative,” said Clint. “I mean, maybe yesterday we saved someone who’ll blow up Asgard and Xandar in a couple of years. Then we’ll have saved one planet but doomed two more. And maybe one of the people you blame yourself for killing would’ve gone on to blow up all three planets, if they’d stuck around.”

“At the end of the day, the three of us are just extreme examples of what everyone else on any planet lives with. Nobody really knows for sure the cumulative impact of their time here, Tony. That’s just the human condition,” said Natasha.

Tony was finally at a point where he felt like he could speak, so he said, “How do you live with it?”

“How do you _not_?” said Clint, with a small smile. “You’ve been living with it all this time, Tony. You just had too much guilt to see it. And guilt… guilt’s a tricky bastard. On the one hand, guilt keeps us accountable, reminds us to make better choices than we did before.”

“But if you’re not careful, guilt can also make you abandon all your friends at the tower, jet off to the middle of nowhere, and drink yourself into an early grave,” said Nat. “And believe it or not, I’m not talking about you. My lake cabin was an apartment in the Eastern bloc. You’re lucky you had some reformed assassins instead of a nosy neighbor keeping tabs on you. I’m pretty sure if we’d let you finish those bottles of gin you were chugging when we found you, we’d be having this conversation in a hospital. And that’s a best-case scenario.”

“I— I’m sorry. I didn’t— I don’t—” stammered Tony.

“We know, Tony,” said Clint. “But for the love of God, please don’t scare us like that again.”

Tony took a deep breath and said, “Do you really believe all of that? All that stuff about not being good or bad and just making good choices in the here and now?”

Clint and Natasha looked at each other.

“I can’t speak for Nat, but for me? Honestly, sometimes I don’t. But I try to. Because the alternative is despair, and I’ve got other ways I’d like to spend the rest of my life rather than believing nothing I do is worth it,” said Clint.

“I’ve always figured there are worse reasons to pick a philosophy than ‘the one that keeps me moving forward,’” said Natasha.

Tony wrapped his hands around the very empty espresso cup and thought. He thought about who he’d been and who he’d become, the good and the bad that he’d done in his life. And he realized that if he hadn’t had the first part of his life when he’d been a merchant of death, it was entirely likely he’d have never become Iron Man. And if he’d never become Iron Man, how many lives would be lost now that he could have saved?

Then Tony’s brain started to catch up on a few more of the repercussions of what he’d done.

“Oh fuck, Pepper—”

“She knows you’re safe. We didn’t tell her where you are, because we know this cabin is for keeping her safe in case you need to hide her,” said Nat.

Tony looked at the two of them, then said, “How many times have you done this?”

“Enough,” said Clint with a pat on the shoulder and a wink.

“How—”

“I’m just gonna go ahead and answer the rest of your questions now,” said Nat. “We’re not going to tell you how we found you. Fury knows everything. The boat is on the south side of the house, along with the boat that we took to cross the lake when we drove up from the city. It’s been about twelve hours since you left Manhattan. No I can’t read minds, you’re just an open book. The number you’re thinking of right now is infinity. The next batch of espresso is ready. And we can’t leave and go back to the city yet because the rest of the team’ll be here in the quinjet any minute.”

Tony was already on his way to the espresso machine the second Nat said, “The next batch of espresso is ready,” but he turned around before he even poured himself another shot and said, “I’m sorry?”

“We told the team you left because you were getting a space ready for us to celebrate saving the world,” said Clint. “Would you rather we told them the truth?”

And yeah, that was probably a good call. Although his super secret cabin was now known to every Avenger plus Fury. He needed another space to hide out in case the worst should happen, but he’d known that the second he’d woken up in the bathtub.

“Thanks,” said Tony. “Although... if it’s alright with both of you, I’d very much like to never speak of this again.”

“The feeling is mutual,” said Nat, then she added, “Now go drink your coffee, I can hear the quinjet setting down outside.

“I don’t hear anything,” said Tony. “Meaning it’s not there or it’s in stealth mode in which case you can’t hear—”

The floor shook slightly. Tony looked out the window and saw the quinjet de-cloaking on the south lawn. Natasha pulled an apple out of nowhere and started cutting into it with a knife also pulled out of nowhere.

“You,” said Tony, “are the scariest Avenger.”

“Don’t you forget it,” said Nat as she bit a piece of apple off her knife.

***

“I really thought any house owned by Tony Stark would have a better stocked liquor cabinet than this,” said Bruce as he finished pouring the last bottle of gin into solo cups.

“I don’t know why my liquor order hasn’t come in yet,” said Tony, who was furiously ordering a ludicrous amount of booze on his phone as he spoke. “The pizza got here quick enough.”

“Maybe they don’t know how to use the drone delivery system you’ve got set up across the lake shore,” said Steve between bites of his third pizza.

“Nah, Jarvis would tell me if that happened. In the meantime, savor your gin. More liquor is on the way, but it might take a bit.”

“Well, there is _one_ more bottle of alcohol in this place,” said Clint.

Tony turned to look at him. And a fraction of a second later, there was panic in his chest as Natasha reached into the backpack she’d brought with her and pulled out that god-forsaken champagne.

“Nah, that’s his special Pepper champagne, we can’t drink that,” said Steve with a small blush.

“Did we decide on that? I’m still not convinced it’s not the same bottle,” said Bruce.

Tony looked at Clint and Natasha, who were both looking back at him intently. A split second later he made his decision.

“I lied. Bruce was right — I wanted to save it for some pretty spectacular people-saving,” said Tony.

Bruce shook his head and said, “Why you still think you can hide anything from us in the long term is beyond me, Tony.”

“Can we open it now?” said Thor. “We did just save the Earth. That sounds pretty spectacular to me.”

Tony took a breath, then said, “Yeah. Yeah, we can open it now.”

A few minutes later, everyone had their red plastic solo cup full of embarrassingly expensive champagne.

“To spectacularly saving the world,” said Bruce as he raised his cup.

“No,” said Tony. He looked around the room and saw everyone there was looking back at him. Anyone else wouldn’t see anything differently in the way Nat and Clint were looking at him just then, and maybe Tony wouldn’t either, if he hadn’t been there this morning when they were talking him out of his spiral. But that didn’t stop him from speaking directly to them when he made his toast.

“To the human condition,” said Tony, raising his cup.


End file.
